The villages of the Alpujarra were resettled with some 12,000 Christian families brought by King Philip II from Galicia and Asturias in north-western Spain. However, these unique hamlets have retained their traditional Berber architecture - terraced clusters of grey-white box-shaped houses with flat clay roofs-which is still common in the rif and Atlas mountains of Morocco. Perhaps the most picturesque villages are the famous trio which cling, one close above the other, too the slopes of the Poqueira Valley, where red peppers and tomatoes are still set out to dry on the flat clay roofs, among the tall round chimney pots. Pampaneira, at the bottom, bustles with crafts shops and restaurants, as does Bubion, half way up the slope, with its massive church tower standing on a plaza of rough paving stones. But to savour the authentic Alpujarra, go to Capjileira at the top of the valley - the name is an Arabic derivation of the Latin word for head or top - and walk down from the road into the lower streets of the village, where the rocky streets, overhanging passageways and sagging, stone houses have still not been remodeled and prettified for contemporary living...

If you stray from the beaten path, you will be sure to catch sight of some of the region's abundant wild life, such as the Cabra Hispanica, a mountain goat which roams the mountains in herds and is often seen standing on pinnacles, silhouetted against the sky. But as soon as its smells the scent of man it will bound up the steepest slopes with amazing speed... The Alpujarra is also famous for its excellent bird watching - the colorful Hoopoe with its stark, haunting cry, is a common sight. The capital of the region is Orgiva, on the lowlands. And the village of Trevelez - famous throughout Spain for its superb mountain hams, or Jamon Serrano - is, at over 4,840 feet above sea level, the highest village in Europe. Overhangs a fast-flowing river and plunging mountain valley.

One of the many great travel books written about Spain is devoted to the Alpujarra - Gerald Brenan's South From Granada, which recounts the adventures of a young Britain who, after serving in World War I, walked through Andulcia in search of a cheap place to live and write. He discovered the tiny village of Yegen, where he rebuilt a ruined house (now marked with a plaque in his memory) and lodged some of his friends of the famous Bloomsbury group of London. In his book - written in retrospect, long after he became a well-known journalist - Brenan describes the difficulties of getting such highly-strung artists as Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey up the river gorges on mule back, as well as his bucolic existence among the local peasants.